Threatening letter to Obama on chilling Turkey is signed by 7 Jewish House members, says Peace Now

Here is evidence of the degree to which Zionism has captured American Jewish life. The Washington Post reports that Congresspeople Shelly Berkley and Eliot Engel are trying to block arms sales to Turkey because it is making trouble for Israel. Berkley and Engel are both Zionists (Engel goes to AIPAC and speaks about Jews’ rights to the West Bank.)

Peace Now reports on the effort and points out that 7 “senior House members” opposing Turkey are Jewish. Many of these Congresspeople are liberals:

On 11/2/11 Rep. Engel (D-NY) and 6 other senior Jewish House members – Berman, D-CA), Lowey (D-NY), Berkley (D-NV), Sherman (D-CA), Israel (D-NY), and Schiff (D-CA) – sent a letter to President Obama blasting Turkey for a laundry list of sins (expelling the Israeli ambassador, not expelling the Syrian ambassador, behavior related to Cyprus, refusing to apologize for the Armenian genocide, and unspecified other actions) and stating that “the United States needs to undertake an urgent review of our relations with Turkey and our overall strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean.” The letter concludes somewhat threateningly: “It is our hope that an intensified and frank dialogue with Turkey can convince Ankara to deescalate some of its rhetoric and roll-back its increasingly destabilizing policies. However, if that cannot be achieved, we look forward to working with your Administration to review the changed environment and develop an approach which better suits the situation.”

136 Responses

Phil, there’s two parts to this piece as I see it. One of it is to point out Jewish influence and penetration(dare we say domination?) of the American elite establishment. The other is really a byproduct to show the first, and that is to somehow paint this as unnecessary for American interests but that this bill is being pushed anyway because A) Jews have an interest in it and B) Most Jews (at least in the political establishment) are Zionists.

The sociological analysis of the American elite is correct, although you often get attacked as a ‘self-hating Jew’ and all the other gibberish. But I disagree with the byproduct, or the prelude(if you will).

Turkey is turning shiftly away from democracy; indeed, Erdogan has himself stated that ‘democracy is a taxi that you ride until you go off at your stop’.
The secularisation that was for long in place has been peeled back inch by inch, his delusional rants about Israel is almost an obsession now by their frequency. He has even threatned to use warships against Israel.

I am under no illusions about the dark side of Israel, the occupation, and the threat an Israel might pose if it was pushed into a corner, feeling an existential panic, and lashing out of pure, raw emotion and fear.

But Turkey as an ally is quickly becomming old news. Turkey is still a vital link to the wider Arab world, but the way we are giving them top of class armory for a regime which is ever-closer closing down on press freedom and increasing islamisation is questionable to say the least.

I happen to be friends with a liberal turkish intellectual who follows the country closely(he still has many friends there and visits the place often). He is dismayed. He is constantly telling me stories of journalists being pressured, even disappearing at times.

This is not a liberal country and it’s turning it’s face away from modernity at a brisk clip. If Jewish Americans see this, even if it is in part out of concern for Israel, then frankly they do us all a favour. And although it is true that Israel’s and America’s interests do not always intersect; they are still likely to do so more often as both are much more similar than an increasingly anti-democratic, islamist and repressing regime that is Turkey of today.

I am under no illusions about the dark side of Israel, the occupation, and the threat an Israel might pose if it was pushed into a corner, feeling an existential panic, and lashing out of pure, raw emotion and fear.

what about the threat israel poses because of the rightwing fanatics who seek to expand into regions they define as ‘greater israel’ at the expense of palestinians? or do you define that as “pushed into a corner, feeling an existential panic, and lashing out of pure, raw emotion and fear” also? maybe you see israel as an untamed beast acting out of ‘pure, raw emotion and fear’ when it ethnically cleanses bedouins from their villages in the negev too.

As I said, Israel is hardly a faultless child. But neither is Turkey. And annie, where is your outrage for the conditions that Palestinians endure in Arab nations(like Jordan) where they are still forced to live in teltcities without running water and are not even granted citizenship.

My point isn’t to say ‘See, other people are worse, therefore Israel is absolved of all blame’. That’s not my point.

My point is that I’m more than a little annoyed by some people’s almost pathological obsession with Israel and see it as the primary source of ‘evil'(in lack of a better word) in the middle east region.

The Middle East is a very tough neighbourhood. It drains any liberal instinct people have because you’re constantly on the verge of invasion and conflict. Again, remember why the ’67 lines were drawn up to begin with? Who actually invaded who?

The conclusion is that reality is complex and not a white/black fairytale of good vs evil.
The letter is a good move. Turkey is not a nation to be giving state of the art military equipment.

The pre ’67 lines were drawn after an armistice following when Israel invaded and occupied lands intended for a future Arab state. The Post June 67 lines were drawn following a surprise attack by Israel on Egypt’s armed forces.

What exactly has Turkey done that would disqualify them from US Foreign Arms sales? Didn’t Israel sell Turkey Billions in arms? What has changed?

An undisclosed nuclear weapons program? Invading and occupying all of their neighboring countries at one time or another? Conducting extra judicial and extraterritorial asassinations? Conducting espionage against the US?

Turkey is not a nation to be giving state of the art military equipment. [sic]

In the same remarks by Ian Lustick, linked below, Lustick recommended to his audience the book, “Foxbats over Dimona.” He explained that “Foxbats” reveals that Russia egged Egypt into the 1967 war/provocation because Russia was aware of how close Israel was to completing nuclear weaponization and wanted to take the facility out.

Russia’s (tragically, failed) attempt to “Osirik” Dimona was a prime motivation for what eventuated into the 1967 war, which in turn resulted in Israel’s extremely harmful turn into a full-scale zionized, militarized settler state. Think of the millions of people who have died — in Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt — to sustain that nuclearized settler entity (it’s not a true state — no declared borders).

“The conclusion is that reality is complex and not a white/black fairytale of good vs evil.”

The essential point is that the world accepts democracies and the world accepts dictatorships, but Apartheid, the half-democracy based on race or religious differences, is the most unstable and explosive form of government of all.

Apartheid really IS black and white (I didnt mean the pun). There are no two sides to it. When other Arabs talk to Palestinians in Arabic, Palestinians tell the story about being on the wrong end of an Apartheid regime, and the stories enrage other Arabs. This is the genesis of war.

Mondoweiss is a news stream that gives insight in English to the anger and war-generating feelings caused by Israeli Apartheid. After a while, you discover that Zionism really is first cause in the modern historical record for a great deal of the conflict in the Middle East and throughout the world. Fighting between the nations immediately bordering Israel eventually settles out. The Apartheid of Israel/Palestine continues to generate anger every day, even when there is nothing in particular going on in the American or Israeli news.

What’s with this new spin (edited by Krauss) about Erdogan as a madman? Are they going to make him a new Hitler too? What did he do other than make Israel mad? Israel didn’t apologize for acting like billigerant rabid monsters, they are at fault.

Also, the neo-Ottoman thing. Stop it. Who came up with such a childish label? A Zionist think tank. Krauss, do you work for one?

Also, 1967 was a preemptive Israeli-initiated war. Their ‘intelligence’ was probably about as factual as WMD in Iraq. Israel was still deligitimate and unrecognized in that part of the world.

And 1948, the Zionists were deligitimate period. Their declaring independence started the war, and they not invaded by Palestinians. Israel should have lost and Zionism should have died if it werent for third party help

“Russia’s (tragically, failed) attempt to “Osirik” Dimona was a prime motivation for what eventuated into the 1967 war, which in turn resulted in Israel’s extremely harmful turn into a full-scale zionized, militarized settler state. Think of the millions of people who have died — in Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt — to sustain that nuclearized settler entity (it’s not a true state — no declared borders).”

This is a pretty incredible statement. It amounts to a spurious statement (“millions have died…to sustain [a] nuclearized settler entity”) based on a dubious assumption, that the Soviets sparked the 67′ war in a bid to destroy the Dimona reactor.

“Foxbats over Dimona,” by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez is a very peculiar book. They present no evidence beyond contingency planning that the Soviets intended to intervene militarily in the ME in 1967. The truth is that Soviets were too cautious to engage in this kind of high-risk adventurism, especially if it involved a potential war with the US. They stirred up a lot of mischief in the 1950s and the 1960’s, to be sure, armed their client states, and they encouraged bad behavior, but they did not want a general war. In any event, Nasser needed little Soviet prodding, and he and ‘Amer knew the Soviet reports of an Israeli build-up in the Syrian border of 15 brigades were false.

According to former Egyptian Field Marshal Mohammed al-Gamsy, when Muhammed Fawzi, the Egyptian chief of staff arrived to consult in Damascus, he was surprised to find no evidence of any IDF buildup on the Syrian border: no reserve call-ups, and no unusual deployment of troops and armor. He later recalled:

“I did not find any concrete evidence to support the information
received {from the Soviets]. On the contrary, aerial photos
taken by Syrian reconnaissance on May 12 and 13 showed
no change in normal Israeli military positions.”

Fawzi also noted that the Syrians had not gone on alert. (See “The October war: Memoirs of Field Marshall el-Gamsy of Egypt,” American University of Cairo, 1993)

On May 14 Levi Eshkol invited the Soviet ambassador to Syria to inspect Israel’s side of the border; it was declined, probably, again, for the simple reason that the Soviets, not believing their own lies, knew there was no buildup. The next day, Odd Bull, chief of the UN Truce Supervision Organization, noted that he “had no reports of any buildup” from any border observers.

Fawzi was also puzzled as to why ‘Amr did not respond to his reports that the Israeli buildup were incorrect, then drew the following conclusion:

“Consequently, I began to believe that from his perspective,
the business of the Israeli troop concentrations was not the
principal reason for mobilization or the troop movements
[in the Sinai] which we had been asked to undertake in
such a hurry.”

Both el-Gamsy and Fawzi believe that, given his knowledge of no Israeli buildup, Nasser had “decided to exploit the situation to annul Israel’s gains from the 1956 war: remilitarize Sinai, secure the withdrawal of UNEF, and again close the Gulf Eilat to Israeli shipping.”

On May 27 the Soviet Ambassador had informed Nasser that the Americans had got wind of a pending Egyptian assault on Israel. On the same day ‘Amer issued orders for an attack on the Negev, but Nasser, alerted to possible American intervention and the obvious unease expressed by the Soviets about such an eventuality, countermanded the order. ‘Amer was furious. He had wanted war, telling Nasser that, “by waiting, Egypt loses even before the war starts.” Yet ‘Amer was not to be disappointed for long. Soon enough, he would get all the war he wanted.

One of the problems of discerning whether Nasser actually intended to attack Israel is from the number of contradictory public and private statements he made in the three weeks leading up to the war. Nasser’s actions, alas, were often the captive of his ever-shifting rhetoric, and do not betray consistency. In retrospect, it seems likely that Nasser saw in the Soviet warnings of May 13, however much he and ‘Amr knew them to be false, an opportunity to, in Fawzi’s words, “to exploit the situation to annul Israel’s gains from the 1956 war: remilitarize Sinai, secure the withdrawal of UNEF, and again close the Gulf Eilat to Israeli shipping.”

Two diametrically opposed beliefs seem to have been contesting each other for mastery in Nasser’s mind in the last few weeks before the outbreak before the war: 1) that by remilitarizing the Sinai, expelling UNEF, and closing the Tiran straits, to score a bloodless political victory short of war which would consolidate his prestige as the premier leader of the Arab world, and his belief that the UN and the superpowers would intervene like a boxing referee to separate Israel and he Arabs, and send them to their corners before things got out of hand, 2) a belief that that the time had come for the final showdown with the “Zionist entity” in order to finally wipe clean the humiliations of 1948 and 1956, that Israel, who had won her 1956 victory only with the help of Britian and France, could not resist the combined might of the Arabs by herself, and that only war could regain what was taken from the Arabs by war.

It is equally clear that he was acting out of no master plan, and just improvising his rhetoric and his actions according to events, of which he was often the servant rather than the master. By expelling UNEF and closing the straits he lit a fire that he could not easily put out without a humiliating loss of prestige—always a priority concern of his. No high pressure diplomacy, from the UN or anyone else would ever have caused him to withdraw. He must have known that it meant war, though, being Nasser, it is possible that he deluded himself that it did not. The Soviets, who were always happy to fan the flames of the region but did not want a war, were taken aback and shocked by Nasser’s closure of the straits. They knew what it meant.

Whatever his misgivings and apprehensions, what can be stated beyond any doubt is that Nasser was now speaking and behaving like a man who wanted war, who was determined to wage it, who was mobilizing propaganda in the service of this intention into a hysterical frenzy of militant rhetoric and imagery, and who was enlisting allies, who, along with him, were complementing their own openly declared intentions to wipe Israel off the map with an active, forward mobilization of their forces along Israel’s border.

By June 4, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq all had reserves called up, mobilized, and massed on the Israeli border.

On the Egyptian border, the Egyptians now had forward deployments of three active divisions from the Erez checkpoint in northeastern Gaza all the way south to Al-Qusayma, one division on the border south of Kuntilla, three divisions behind the forward positions, and several assorted armored and artillery brigades in west and south Sinai—all told about 100,000 troops, 900 tanks and about 800 heavy artillery.

Jordan had massed some 56,000 troops organized into a forward deployment of nine infantry brigades, two armored brigades, a mechanized brigade and an Iraqi brigade. They had 294 tanks and 194 artillery pieces.

Syria fielded about 70,000 troops into a forward deployment of six infantry brigades, with two paratroop and special forces battalions, along with two armored brigades, one mechanized brigade, and one independent armored battalion. They had 300 tanks and 265 artillery pieces.

Against this, Israel could now mobilize about 250-264,000 men, about three-quarters reservists, and about 100,000 which could be placed on the borders. They were divided into 11 infantry brigades, two paratroop brigades, two independent units of special forces infantry, and three mechanized infantry brigades. They had about 1100 tanks and 400 artillery, divided into 12 artillery and 6 armored brigades.

On May 30 King Hussein of Jordan had signed a military pact with Nasser in Cairo. The same day Iraqi forces took up positions in Jordan. Said President Aref of Iraq on May 31: “Our goal is clear: to wipe Israel off the map.” He added: “There will be no Jewish survivors.”

Said Ahmed Shukairy, chairman of the PLO on June 1: “The Jews of Palestine will have to leave…Any of the old Jewish Palestine population who survive may stay, but it is my impression that none of them will survive.”

Said Damascus Radio: “Arab masses, this is your day. Rush to the battlefield…Let them know that we shall hang the last imperialist soldier with the entrails of the last Zionist.”

Said Hafez al-Assad to his troops in a frightening hint of what he would do to 20,000 of his own people 15 years later in Hama: “Strike the enemy’s [civilian] settlements, turn them into dust, and pave the Arab roads with the skulls of Jews. Strike them without mercy.”

Assad also said: “Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian Army, with its finger on the trigger, is united… I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.”

The number of nightmare scenarios now facing the Israelis were thus endless. First, there was the time factor. As Edward Luttwak and Daniel Horowitz have stated in their excellent study of the IDF: “There was a basic asymmetry in the structure of forces: the Egyptians could deploy their large army of long term regulars on the Israeli border and keep it there indefinitely; the Israelis could only counter their deployment by mobilizing reserve formations, and reservists could not be kept in uniform for very long. Egypt could therefore stay on the defensive while Israel would have to attack unless the crisis was defused diplomatically.” (“The Israeli Army: 1948-1973,” p.110)

Secondly, and most importantly, the Israelis, as in 1948, had a distinct geographical disadvantage. True, they had the advantage of interior lines, but this was negated by the length of the borders they had to defend, the vulnerable narrowness of the coastal plain, which impeded their ability to shunt forces from north to south and vice-versa, and the ability of Syria, Jordan, and Egypt to strike, or advance a combination of multiple feints and actual strikes at any time of their choosing that would have had the numerically inferior Israelis jumping up and down 545 miles of borders thwarting one contingency after another with no guarantee that they could ever bring decisive force to meet any of them. Their only advantage therefore lay in anticipation. The only way to effectively deter such an attack from ever occurring was to preempt it.

The consensus of American intelligence before the war was that, in a war, Israel would win against the Arabs whether they were attacking or defending. While it is clear that this view of an Israeli first strike was dead-on, the notion that Israel could have safely absorbed an attack by the Arabs within her 1949 Armistice lines looks, in retrospect, utterly implausible.

An attack by Egypt alone from the Sinai into the Negev could have given the Israelis some, though not much, cushion to absorb an armored strike and perhaps conduct a mobile defense at which the IDF’s superiority in tactics and leadership would have a marginal advantage, but this would be offset by the Egyptians’ superiority in mass and equipment, not to mention their ability to focus the entire forward weight of their attack in a single direction at various points along the 211 mile Egypt-Gaza border without any concern for their rear or flanks; the Israelis, on the other hand, who were numerically inferior, would have had to meet this force with less than half of their mobilized strength, while the rest of their reserves stood defensively along 334 miles of winding border with Jordan and Syria.

Given the total lack of strategic depth on the 204 mile long border of the West Bank where Israel’s wasp-like waist along the coastal plain could be severed by the blow of a few heavy, well-placed Jordanian armored columns, this scenario was particularly hellish. All of the main Israeli population centers were within close striking distance from the West Bank: Netanya—9 miles, Tel-Aviv—11 miles, Beersheva—10 miles, Haifa—21 miles, Ashdod—22 miles, and Ashkelon a mere 7 miles from Gaza, not to mention cities like Eilat and Jerusalem that were within direct striking distance, and vulnerable to encirclement and siege. Scattering their forces up and down their eastern border to meet multiple contingencies, and without any room to maneuver and retrench, their numerically inferior cadres could be smashed or bypassed, and their units to the north and south severed from one another, surrounded, and cut to pieces. Even the most ingenious tactical flair by the Israelis would be powerless to stop it. In this eventuality, geography, the Arabs’ superior numbers and equipment, and the advantage of timing, would put the Israeli superiority in tactics, leadership, and morale at a severe discount. Israel, in all likelihood, would have been destroyed.

It seems entirely plausible to me that Israel’s revisionist critics and antagonists, in their feverish attempts to rewrite the history of the 1967 war, can look upon the circumstances of May-June 1967 and conclude that there was not a real and imminent threat to Israel’s survival, but the Israelis did, and they chose to survive, rather than not to.

Werdine, are you writing all this stuff or cutting and pasting and if so, why, and why aren’t you giving your sources credit?

Israel was not threatened by Egypt as a number of leaders, including generals, like Rabin, later admitted. The late Gen. Matti Peled, who was in charge of logistics during the war and later broke with the Israeli war machine, debated another general, Meir Pail, I believe his name was, on whether or not Israel was threatened by Egypt and whether the war was a necessity. Peled thought not and won the debate.

Robert, you are old enough to know the difference between quality and quantity, and unless the Zionists are paying you by the word. you might take that into consideration.

“Think of the millions of people who have died — in Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt — to sustain that nuclearized settler entity (it’s not a true state — no declared borders).”

Hi Hopmi, you commented:
Think of the utter whackiness of this comment.

You are right: Shouldn’t be millions, should be about million. Million dead is what nations paid to sustain that nuclearized settler entity. To make it millions is laying blame too thick. Utter whackiness.

Get your propaganda right Kraus, in Jordan, Palestinians refugee are not forced to live in tent cities and refused citizenship. That would be Lebanon (and while the camps are crowded, with infrastructure jerry-rigged from mains making it dangerous and unsanitary they are not tent cities). Most Palestinians in Jordan do not live in camps, those that do are there for economic reasons not political ones and they are neighbors there with poor Jordanians. Jordan provides health care and education too. It is hard to take is as anything other than feigned sympathy when you care so little about basic facts.

While I find Kraus attempt to play fair arbiter entirely transparent, I have to (mostly) agree with his views on the increasing oppression in Turkey. Quite apart from the oppression of Kurds, including torture and mass rape, theres the sham trials against half the military and one of the worlds worst records for the intimidation and imprisonment of journalists. While it’s not possible to oppose arms sales to Turkey for human rights reasons while *giving* them away to Israel and remain consistent, and Erdogan has lately been saying things I agree with on Israel, I have no allusions that it has anything to do with concern for human rights or international law. The enemy of your enemy isn’t always your friend.

“My point is that I’m more than a little annoyed by some people’s almost pathological obsession with Israel and see it as the primary source of ‘evil’(in lack of a better word) in the middle east region”

My point is:

1) Let me know when the US starts giving Turkey 3 billion plus a year.
2) Let me know when the US quits giving Israel 3 billion a year.
3) Let me know when Jews in the US congress quit demanding the US distance itself from every country in the world but Israel.
4) Let me know when Israel quits demanding the US make war on all their enemies.
5) Let me know when out zio-neo-elite controlled US ‘democracy’ gets any better than Turkey’s democracy.
6) Let me know when the US stop being Israel’s agent at the UN and renounces all international law for Israel.

Then will we stop our pathological obsession with US zionist and Israel. You can’t possibility be any more annoyed with us than we are with your red herring arguments.

Nations don’t have friends they have ‘interest.’
Israel is the only exception to the US “interest”.

Turkey doesn’t have any more “repression” of rights than Saudi has and the US trusted Turkey enough to make them keepers of some US nuclear warheads as part of their NATO duties.
Turkey has gone out it’s way to try and barter a deal between Iran and the US to reduce regional tensions…so what’s changed between the US and Turkey except Israel doesn’t like them any more?

Turkey is trying to keep the region from blowing up, Israel is tryin to blow it up…and now the zioneocons in the US are too.

Prof. Ian Lustick’s thoughts on “the threat that Israel the Hysterical might pose if it were pushed into a corner” are extraordinary: he predicts that if Israel maintains its present course, it will “disappear” as did the Soviet Union, etc., and he implies that Israel recognizes this — it is “”facing an abyss” — and that Israel’s leaders fervently hold “hysterical” views with which they indoctrinate Israelis at every opportunity:

And in 100 years, there will be a solution. Now, that is a horrible thing to contemplate. But when you think about the other countries that have disappeared from the planet – I don’t mean swallowed up by the earth; I mean that the regime disappeared – the Soviet Union, South Africa, the shah’s Iran, Yugoslavia. These were countries that, within 10 to even five years before they disappeared, you wouldn’t know they were able to disappear.

We have to have – start thinking about how states behave when they start to see the horizon of their existence. Israel’s response to Iran is hysterical in that sense and it is understandable because they are approaching an abyss. . . . Only in the last year previous to that, I’ve heard Prime Minister Netanyahu, in person, in private, go on like a rocket about the need to attack Iran, to end this Nazi threat to the world.

Israel is going to kill the United States as a superpower by dragging us into a war with Iran. Nato will fall apart, we will lose our influence in the UN, people will stop selling us oil and buying their oil with the dollar and we will be left with nothing.

If none of your scenarios does it, when the Saudis move oil pricing off the dollar standard, say goodbye to what’s left of the American living standard. Cheap energy costs here have supported the greatest standard of living the world has ever known ever, since the end of WWII(the base of the economic pyramid). All denominated in the dollar, in spite of the fact, that virtually no Saudi oil comes here? The Saudi Ambassador just weeks ago warned that the veto of the Palestinian state will forever, irrevocably alter the relationship with America(read the dollar). I guess the greens here will get a chance to test their some of their theories unless of course Barry has signed off on WWIII?
Hej!

Why is it good to have a member in NATO that doesn’t belong there, not least politically and culturally? And that which is increasingly hostile towards close NATO allies like Israel. Turkey has been moving away from the West at increasingly high speeds during the recent years.

Erdogan is a mad man, and one who has neo-Ottoman fantasies. He has blatant disregard for democracy. I’m curious why people who were against Mubarak and rightly railed against the neocons for expressing support for him(because he was good for Israel) now stand silent when an anti-Israeli ruler who is increasingly becomming a new Mubarak is solidifying his grip on his country?

Is there perhaps more that link neocons and people like you, perhaps you both view the ME through the prism of Israel? One side always take the pro-Israel position no matter what and the other always take the anti-Israel position no matter what.

Erdogan may talk softly, but so did Adolf Hitler pre-Poland(yes, I know, an extreme example but it’s a good example of deception vs political reality and intentions).

I’m not suggesting Erdogan will invade any country, but it’s increasingly likely he will end up as an Islamist version of Putin, always clinging to power, but instead of going solo like Russia he has a fervent anti-Israeli ideological bent which makes him irrational.

And btw, for a guy like Erdogan to puff for 1) secularism and 2) democracy when he has been working overtime to undermine both is more than ironic. That you don’t see that is an indicament of your insight and basic analytical ability.

Oh so now Edrogan is Hitler and those of us who oppose the wars in the Middle East are the neocons.

You’re just trashing Edrogan because he’s one of the few countries who’s standing up to Israel’s attempt to turn Gaza into the Warsaw Ghetto. You’re just trying to deflect onto one Turkish man all of the attention that should be directed to sixty years of Israeli regimes which, with one sort-of exception, have been nothing but brutal, racist and oppressive. Not to mention ethnic-surpremacist.

What right do you have to talk about “neo-Ottomans,” as a “neo-Hebrew?”

“Israel is not a NATO ally. There are no military alliances between the US and Israel. ”

I hope you are kidding.

“There are no military alliances between the US and Israel.”

Re-read and see if you come out alive with any credibility left.

“Israel is becoming less democratic, and perhaps meets the criteria for limiting sale of offensive arms by your standards.”

I’m not against the idea of restricting arms sales to Israel if the nation becomes more and more anti-democratic. Of course, we have to have a standard which is fair for all, and that includes Israel.

I’ve stated numerous times that I am under no illusions about where Israel is slowly turning, and it isn’t a pretty place. But there is more nuance in this world than singling out a single nation for the ills of Middle East. Israel tries to defend itself, most of the time. A lot of that comes from self-inflicted wounds but to assume no guilt and agression on the part of it’s neighbours is deeply wrong and totally unserious.

One can argue about the creation of Israel, but now it’s there. And it’s a fact of life that there are plenty of people in the Arab world who see red just because there even is such a thing as a Jewish state. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Mein Kampf is a bestseller on the Arab street and has been one for so many decades?

true, neighboring arab states dont like israel by and large. state dept predicted this in 47.
and, some of this today has to do with israel’s treatment of palestinians.
if i could wave a wand and israel and palestine would be one democracy, tomorrow, and the irrational awful objections of the neighboring states ended, would you stay my hand krauss? and if so, why?
(and if saudi arabia could have waved a wand and israel would have retunred to 67 border ins 2002 and 22 arab states accepted i’s existence, would you have let em wave it?)

Fair, Krauss? You come across first as as Zionist, then as a racist (I agree, a redundancy) when you describe Turkey as a “member in NATO that doesn’t belong there, not least politically and culturally?”

Then your patently Israel-first agenda is further exposed when you follow that last sentence, apparently intended to support it with this one:

“And that which is increasingly hostile towards close NATO allies like Israel.” To what other NATO “ally” other than Israel has Turkey shown hostility, pray tell?

Turkey’s public objections to Israel, you will recall, began on January 29, 2009, when Erdogan appeared on a panel at Davos with Shimon Peres, the world’s longest serving unindicted war criminal.

Erdogan had not said a word until the odious Peres launched into a 25 minute justification for Operation Cast Lead that had just ended the week before. At that point Erdogan attempted to respond to Peres but was cut off by the moderator, the Washington’s Post’s David Ignatius (!) after 2 minutes during which he told Peres, “When it comes to killing, you know this job very well.”

Then we had the incident almost a year later when Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon invited the Turkish ambassador to his office to complain about a Turkish TV program that reportedly depicted the Israeli army as child killers and, so photographers could record it, had him sit on a child’s chair close to the floor so that Ayalon, with an Israeli flag on his desk, could look down on him,.link to time.com

That was in January, 2010, and I do not need to repeat the details of the attack on the Mavi Marmara which would come four months later.

BTW, one of the things that Turkey definitely does share with its NATO allies, at least the people those European governments purport to represent, is that they consider Israel to be the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran or North Korea. . A similar role in 2003 had the same results.

This is not to make a defense for Turkey’s internal policies. Its war on the Kurds and its crackdown on dissenting journalists is to be condemned but that did not bother these seven Jewish members of Congress, or non-Jewish members, when Turkey was kissing Israel’s behind and it doesn’t now. Their primary job in Congress, aside from being re-elected, is to serve Israel and it’s long past time when such individuals need to be publicly targeted as such.

Phil, from a purely philosophical perspective I don’t really believe in nation-states. But pragmatism requires a sense of history and if you know anything about Jewish history, Israel is one answer.

Agreed; some Jews like you are relaxed about your life in the diaspora. So am I. Jews would probably be less safe if we were all in Israel than how it is today.

But in the event of something drastic and terrifying, having an armed and nuclear-capable Israel is a life-saver. Israel is the ultimate back-up plan for many Jews in the worst-case scenario and the primary nation of living for others.

I know the counter-argument to this, I’ve heard it a thousand times; but really? Pogroms in this day and age?
It doesn’t have to be pogroms.

But what if Europe was on verge on small-scale ethnic bloodshed 10 years from now after a prolonged financial meltdown and rising ethnic tensions? It wouldn’t have to be directed at Jews primarily, it could be something else but the situation would be dangerous; wouldn’t it be nice with an Israel(or a Canda, Australia and/or America) to flee to?

As for your questions: So would I want a full-fledged bi-national state with zero discrimination? No, I don’t believe the hate can be washed away even for several generations. It would be total pandemonium and bloodshed if attempted, as noble as the aim is.

Since human tribes don’t tend to mix very well in large nations if both tribes reach a certain scale, I really do think the 2SS is the only way to go. And for the Saudi Arabia question: I would actually give them a much bigger state.

I would opt to give them the original 80 % of the Mandate Palestine. Jews get 20 %, Arabs get 80 %. Some sort of arrangement would be made so they could access their holy sites. Some sort of recompensation for the farms, the olive trees and so forth to the genuine descendants of the refugees.

But Israel would not carry that burden alone. Jordan, Syria and other Arab states have not even budged an inch to help the Pals, and they would need to repent too. I would share the blame evenly where it belongs, not dump it all on Israel’s back.

Now, privately, I am convinced that Israel won’t last for much more than, say, 10-15 years. I think that eventually the Jewish people in Israel will have enough. It will be the psychological factor. They will be in constant terror. Sderot will be Israel soon. Ashkelon is already turning into one.

That’s why you see this talk of attaching Iran, because if Iran is down, Egypt in Turmoil and Syria disabled, Hezbollah and Gaza can finally be dealth with. The Israelis are looking for an end game, but it won’t make them safe.

The Arabs do truly hate the Jews. Even way before the establishment of Israel did you have pogroms in the 1920s, and of course the Palestinian establishment were fervent Hitler supporters and promised to aid the genocide of Jews if the Nazis were ever able to break through the British ranks.

In the end, Israelis will say “it’s not worth it” and the diasporists like yourself will have won. Not by your ideological persuasion or intellectual debate(you’re too dangerous to be mainstream); rather by the events of the world.

I suppose you are talking in the usual zionist double-speak, when you say Palestinians get 80% of “mandate Palestine” that they get 0% of historical Palestine and the 80% of the mandate that wasn’t Palestine (and only briefly part of the mandate if ever), i.e., give the Palestinians Jordan. It’s still ethnic cleansing, you’re still banning the native people of the land you claim from life in their land of origin. I support safety for Jews in general, safety for innocent people everywhere, but why do people who commit ethnic cleansing, who institute policies of ethnic supremacy, who give themselves permission to kill with impunity anyone who objects to being pushed out of their land, actually deserve to be able to kill innocent people or take their property in safety?

Krauss, I think you are suffering from a typical case of what Gilad Atzmon has described as “Jewishness,” in which you consider your Jewish identity more important than your human identity. Otherwise, the fact that Israel is a nuclear weapons state and is threatening Iran, enough by the way, to justify Iran attacking Israel at this very moment under UN Art. 51, you would find troubling if not frightening.

Today, probably, most Arabs do hate Jews. And have they not good reason? Did not most Jews hate Germans, without exceptions, during and immediately after WW2?

If you actually knew anything about the Middle East besides what your Jewishness has allowed you to ingest, you would know that for the most part, Mizrahi Jews enjoyed friendly relations with their Muslim and Christian neighbors throughout the Arab world, in some places, better, and in other cases, worse, but mostly friendly and peaceful until the advent of Zionism.

That truth, however, is something that you can’t accept because it places the blame for the exodus of Jews from Arab lands right at those who caused it, the European Zionists, not much different from you in appearance, who thought that they had more right to live in the land of Palestine than the people who had lived there for centuries and that Jews who lived in other countries were “not complete” and could never be true citizens of those countries.

Zionism was not only was an expression of Jewish self-hatred, of antisemitism but it has been fomenting it from its inception.

naomi klein has pointed out brilliantly how piggy it is, when global warming is destroying countries, that we jews get to have two countries, the one we live in and an Just In Case country
the logic you employ, krauss, is why it is A Lot Unsafer in the Just in Case country than it is in the diaspora.
there have been pogroms against lots of people, not just jews. right now there are pogroms against palestinians; but of course our frame of refernce is what happened to us 120 years ago– when god bless it, the American Jewish lobby acted to free my grandfathers

“Otherwise, the fact that Israel is a nuclear weapons state and is threatening Iran, enough by the way, to justify Iran attacking Israel at this very moment under UN Art. 51″

This is a rich theory coming from you. There is no imminent threat that would justify this analysis. That you would bring it up is indicative of the politics that drive your legal analysis.

“Today, probably, most Arabs do hate Jews. And have they not good reason? Did not most Jews hate Germans, without exceptions, during and immediately after WW2? ”

Did not Germans try to kill all the Jews? Are you asserting that the Jews are trying to kill all of the Arabs?

“That truth, however, is something that you can’t accept because it places the blame for the exodus of Jews from Arab lands right at those who caused it, the European Zionists,”

This is also rich. European Zionists did not force Arab governments to expel Jews. Jews in Arab lands were expelled as an antisemitic punishment for Jews someplace else exercising their right to self-determination.

“Zionism was not only was an expression of Jewish self-hatred, of antisemitism but it has been fomenting it from its inception.”

“Why is it good to have a member in NATO that doesn’t belong there, not least politically and culturally? ”

NATO was set up as an anti-Soviet alliance. Turkey was anti-Soviet and willing to join. That was all that was required. Culture has nothing to do with military alliances. (Try sorting out the common culture of SEATO!)

The US (and most of NATO) didn’t care about liberalism and democracy when the Turkish military carried out coups in 1960, 1971, and 1980.

The US (and most of NATO) didn’t care about liberalism and democracy when Greece was ruled by a military junta from 1967 to 1974.

The US (and most of NATO) didn’t care about liberalism and democracy when the Pact of Madrid (1953) enable military cooperation between Francoist Spain and the USA.

The US (and most of NATO) didn’t care about liberalism and democracy in Portugal when NATO was founded. Portugal (a founder member, like Turkey) was dictatorship until 1974.

“But what if Europe was on verge on small-scale ethnic bloodshed 10 years from now after a prolonged financial meltdown and rising ethnic tensions? It wouldn’t have to be directed at Jews primarily, it could be something else but the situation would be dangerous; wouldn’t it be nice with an Israel(or a Canda, Australia and/or America) to flee to?”

I see your point. Since there are no such states as Canada, Australia, or the USA, it is necessary to ensure that Israel exists.

No imminent threat to Iran, hophmi? That is all the Israeli press is talking about these days and their getting support from the Zionist 5th column in Washington. Israelis and their lickspittles keep repeating that Ahamdinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map, a threat he never made which, even if true, is nowhere as specific as what we read in the Israeli press.

No, all the Germans did not try to kill all the Jews, although some obviously did. That several hundred thousands survived the camps, if barely, attests to their failure. But must one only hate those who kill their people, or may those who are oppressed, whose land has been stolen, who have been routinely humiliated while their oppressors have searched for new, sadistic ways to destroy their humanity, and yes, kill them, as well, do not they also have the right to hate those who do that to them, and isn’t that what Israel is and always has been about?

Jews, in some places, may have been expelled from Arab lands but for the most part they left voluntarily, albeit under some duress. Imagine, Israel even sent planes to Iraq and Yemen to pick them up; so sacks on their backs for them, while the Moroccan govern begged the Jews there to stay. Many who left later regretted it.

hophead, everyone knows that the goal of the Zionists from Herzl to Ben Gurion was to create a NEW Jew, one that didn’t fit into the stereotype of the moneylender, the tailor or the school teacher, you know, a blond, blue-eyed kind of Jew, like Paul Newman, in Exodus.
In other words, the Zionists accepted the image of the Jews as defined by their enemies or what was perceived to be their enemies. And they wanted to change it. They did, into something hideous that would be unrecognizable to Jews of a century ago.

Seriously Krauss, do some f’ing research. There are SO many basic errors of fact in your post it’s embarrassing, cringingly so when you compound your ignorance by insisting upon your errors and claiming others lack credibility.

“This is not to make a defense for Turkey’s internal policies. Its war on the Kurds and its crackdown on dissenting journalists is to be condemned but that did not bother these seven Jewish members of Congress, or non-Jewish members, when Turkey was kissing Israel’s behind and it doesn’t now. Their primary job in Congress, aside from being re-elected, is to serve Israel and it’s long past time when such individuals need to be publicly targeted as such.”

Exactly. It is one thing thing for people who actually give a crap about human rights to unselectively point out Turkey’s internal policies, it is beyond hypocrisy for rock solid Zionists to do it.

Probably not. Your wand would would work. Please wield it, if it’s that powerful. But I’m afraid it’s just 10 days too late. I have been down this road before and I had hoped it would be the last time. Oh well, we all have our dreams.

I would think Krauss(a nice German surname) is a reason hysterical Americans might think they need a second country to escape what?
I hate to break this to you, Jews could always pass and did very well when they needed to which wasn’t all that often. Irish Catholics as well.
I think those days are gone if they truly ever existed. None of the Jews I know have ever been assaulted or anything close to it unlike others. Somebody wasn’t nice and that’s about it.

In the Jim Crow days, they could spot the blacks and Mexicans(no passing), but I never saw a Jew abused in the least, unlike the blacks and Mexicans. Jew bashing was a hypothetical exercise as no one had ever seen one as far as they knew. Maybe a country club or two in NYC, I don’t know, I probably couldn’t get in there either.

The fact of the matter is, America is the Jewish homeland, Israel is the dangerous Madoff scam.

As for Krauss, I think Phil should upgrade his site so we can put certain commentators on ignore. All the financial sites I frequent have this capability(even free Yahoo financial) so you can screen out the Boiler Room shorts and not be driven crazy. Here, we could screen out all of the IDF Corporals in the Hasbara Division. I think it would be much more productive site as you’re not ever going to cure the sub-clinical psychopaths with a post and you wouldn’t be enticed into trying.
Hej! Tumta

“Erdogan made a tour of North Africa in September, arguing eloquently for secular democracy for Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.”

Whizdom, don’t lose sight of Erdogan being a staunch Islamist, that his AK party is an Islamist one and that his North African tour was to drum up alliances between Turkey’s Muslim Brotherhood and the MB of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya that are set to take control of the 3 countries. Turkey like other Sunni countries in the region are solidly the American camp and more concerned with putting out the Shia light than doing anything nasty to Israel. Erdogan has signed more commercial, trade and military agreements with Israel than all other Turkish PMs combined so don’t believe all that rhetoric you are hearing between Israel and Turkey. Those 7 senior House members are part of the ongoing act. Apart from its brouhaha about having the Turkish Navy to escort Turkish ships, last May, Turkey cancelled a Turkish flotilla voyage to Gaza and this week it hindered another one on the Irish and Canadian ships.

Walid, I have no illusions about Turkey or Erdogan but the cancelling of the Turkish ships that were scheduled to participate in the Gaza flotilla was, I am sure, based on the developments in Syria which were and remain far more important for Turkey than does its involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict. At that point any posturing with relation to the latter needed to be set aside.

It’s not that you are wrong about Turkey – I really don’t know enough about the country – it’s that you are wrong about Israel.

Israel is how you describe Turkey. The democratic bus is grinding to a halt in Israel, and everyone is getting off the bus. Israel has found its stop, and it is none to pretty.

Similar, the US now is in a situation where the Republican Party has contempt for democracy, and the Democratic Party really does not care much one way or the other. Of course Israel and American interests intersect.

I hear you say that a Jewish theocracy and a Christian theocracy are better than a Muslim theocracy, and frankly you are wrong. Each one is worse than the others.

“I hear you say that a Jewish theocracy and a Christian theocracy are better than a Muslim theocracy, and frankly you are wrong. Each one is worse than the others.”

I hope you read what I wrote, not listening to voices in your head.

And no, theocracy of any kind is wrong. And of course I am worried where Israel is going. My point was not to absolve Israel. But any moment when you take away the focus from Israel on this site, some people go nuts.

They have a very one-dimensional world view of the Middle East where Israel is ‘The Great Threat’. I just think that sort of simplistic world view is childish.

They have a very one-dimensional world view of the Middle East where Israel is ‘The Great Threat’. I just think that sort of simplistic world view is childish.

That’s in your head mainly. Since you assume that your criticism is legitimate, since not antisemitic, but ours definitively must be. We know this position by now by heart.

Interestingly in your defense of Israel you paint a pan-Turkish threat, that is reminiscent of “the protocols”. The terms you use point in that direction too, aspirations of empire: “neo-Ottoman”. The fear staring out of the mirror at the supporter of the good versus the evil emipire?

How should we call this new type of recent Protocols of the Elders of Arabia/Turkey/Persia series: “The Laurie Mylroie type of conspiracy lore”?

But let me look at another rhetorical axis of your argument:

Why is it good to have a member in NATO that doesn’t belong there, not least politically and culturally? And that which is increasingly hostile towards close NATO allies like Israel. Turkey has been moving away from the West at increasingly high speeds during the recent years.

Not Turkey has moved away from the West, the West, especially conservative corners, politically, have kept Turkey at distance from the EU, in ways that must have felt slightly embarrassing on the Turkish side. (gradual integration surely would have been the way to go).

I expect some facts that your claims concerning Turkey can comfortably rest on, apart from the Turkish (or Erdogan’s) changing attitude towards Israel post Gaza, the flotilla. Or should we start in 2006, when Turkey worked as mediator between Syria and Israel? But Israel decided to attack Hezbollah, perceived as Syria’s proxy in Lebanon on-post-911-cloud-nine adding it’s own little war of destruction to the grater WOT?

Krauss, why do you think that Gallup polls taken in Europe in 2003 and again this year reveal that Europeans believe “Israel is the greatest threat to world peace,” (a position which I share)? Is it, in your mind, “old-fashioned anti-semitism” or is it, perhaps, they know more than Americans about the nature of Israel and shall we say, its protean sadism, having been regularly exposed to news coverage that has not been filtered through our Zionist dominated media?

This is not a liberal country and it’s turning it’s face away from modernity at a brisk clip. If Jewish Americans see this, even if it is in part out of concern for Israel, then frankly they do us all a favour. And although it is true that Israel’s and America’s interests do not always intersect; they are still likely to do so more often as both are much more similar than an increasingly anti-democratic, islamist and repressing regime that is Turkey of today.

I read what you wrote. You believe a Jewish and Christian theocracy is better than a Muslim one. The anti-democratic nature of Israel does not seem to bother you very much at all, neither does the US, but you are quite afraid of Turkey.

Perhaps the problem comes from an inability to see problems within your favourite country while seeing the problems in countries you do not like in exquisite detail.

No, your point is to distract from what Israel is doing by claiming others are the same or worse.
Without going into how what Israel ” is doing” is different from what Turkey and others are doing, let me just say I think ‘simpled minded” applies to your arguments, not ours.

Since 2 days in October 1973, Israel is the greatest threat and the next nuclear go around they start is going to be worse. If the Israelis use the nukes on Iran(not that we’ll know), then what will you say, Schultz? I didn’t know. If Israel rolls the dice and starts this madness, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t go all out. It’s not like anyone we know of will speak up?
Hej!

Actually you might be wrong somewhat. As a child/teenager I lived among the people you know as the Taliban, Turkey, Libya and Iran. South Baptist Texas as well. I’m an Atheist, but I was always more comfortable anywhere in the Muslim world at that time as an American. I was probably safer in Karachi and Istanbul(in spite of the Gypsies) than any major American city.

The Oklahoma and South Texas Taliban are very serious as well and big Israel supporters. The great blindness of the rest of Americans would seem to be that not understanding economic class Living a hard life every day can make you strong and sometimes irrational. I wouldn’t hesitate to participate in a small arms unit operation with recruits from Peshawar or points north(hypothetical), but with anyone here?

Surviving the worst daily poverty on the planet makes you strong. You don’t have any other options. If you want to pay it a visit, try the South side of San Antonio on a Saturday night, Not nearly as serious, but it will give you an idea. The only way to defeat a people with no options is to kill them all as they have nothing to lose. That’s not a victory in any sane persons book?

The Israelis and their supporters are rapidly approaching their Soviet(as in Germany) moment. In their desperation, they are going to do enormous harm because they are definitely prepared to kill everyone. They feel entitled due to their imagined suffering just as the Germans did 80 years ago.

He stated this already as a younger man, and younger people tend to be more liberal. I think you should read his foreign minister’s PhD dissertation and see his deep liberal instincs too.

I’m not asking for people to take sides. I’m asking people to think clearly and openly about the situation and not narrow down to a pre-conception that they cannot shake off and thus blind themselves to facts and information that goes against the grain of their world view.

Such as Erdogan is a great liberal reformer, just because he doesn’t like Israel.

Erdogan’s opponents cite those changes, and his efforts to lift a ban on Islamic headscarves at university and make alcohol sales harder, as proof that his agenda is more religious than liberal. They often cite a comment Erdogan made when he was mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s, calling democracy “a train that takes you to your destination, and then you get off.”

Hmm? Rather vague, and in the context of the military’s power to overthrow the administration diminished by Erdogan. Should something similar exist in Israel? How can we trust that the military has democratic interests? I know the history by the way, and during the Bush reign considered that something like that might be helpful in other states too.

So, he said that in the 90’s. We now have to study all official statements by Erdogan form 1990 to 1999 to get the context? Now that is manipulatively, clever. Some of the dirt always sticks.

We have many people in Cologne with Turkish roots, the ones I know keep telling me, that Erdogan isn’t bad for Turkey.

“a train that takes you to your destination, and then you get off.” ……

That is not the actual quote.

That is only a part of the quote. If you are going to base your arguments against Erdogan on a part of a quote, I can do the same and state that “Krauss has said that Erdogan is a great liberal reformer.”

I have strong reservations about PM Erdogan but I will not put them forward based on parts of quotes.

I think we are all going to feel quite foolish if Krauss turns out to be an Israeli Corporal in the IDF’s Hasbara unit. You should assume they’re pretty good, it’s a full time job and we’re paying their salary!

For the Americans on this blog, we don’t have to figure out the solution for every ethnic tragedy or a remedy.
“Friend to all nations, entanglements with none”, Let them sort it out, once Congress is liberated.
Hej!

So Beer is the root of the Clash of Civilizations your espousing? You do know there are dry counties in Baptist Texas and Oklahoma today? I wandered all over Istanbul and other parts of Turkey as an American teenager(before 67) and I was safer there than Tulsa or the Orthodox areas of NYC and Tel-Avi. Of course, Zionism poisoned that.
In the second largest Jewish community in the ME, Tehran, Jews and other minorities are allowed alcohol since they are not Muslims. Other privileges as well, including guaranteed representation in Parliament. Not the West Bank or Gaza by a long shot. No knocks on the door in the middle of the night
Being a student of propaganda, I can’t wait for the end of the rope Hasbara propaganda. Then we’ll see what you really have Schultz, maybe?
Hej!

RE: “I am under no illusions about the dark side of Israel, the occupation, and the threat an Israel might pose if it was pushed into a corner, feeling an existential panic, and lashing out of pure, raw emotion and fear [and/or at the insistence of the apocalyptic Rabid Rabbis of Judea™ in the West Bank settlements – J.L.D.].” ~ Krause

When has Israel ever done us a favor, Hasbarist. They are the masters of the zero sum game, but me thinks, they’ve grown a little too big for their britches.
Nobody’s disappearing in Palestine or now, the high seas for that matter(sic)? The Israelis have set the Gold standard for people “disappearing” routinely. The Turks aren’t pirates, you and your friends are. You do know what consideration eventually pirates get?

No, it’s a group of sub-clinical Psychopaths with enormous influence. How it came to this for a whole people and now us, I couldn’t or wouldn’t tell you (actually I have my suspicions, but it’s a long conversation with adults only). In the next 90 days, I’m investing every dollar I have in the Zionists plans for disaster. Hopefully, then I can run away and hide afterword.
Hej!

The “World Series” – “US-Israel United” against the rest of the world has gone crazy. Or maybe they were always crazy…?

The rest of the world is pissed off by Israel and their bulldog called: USA. There should be an Occupy World Movement called:

107 – 14

Only when people like Mel Gibson and John Galliano get to drunk, and make idiotic comments, is the frustration allowed in the media. And then only to silence the ones that have become so irritated (and stupid from alcohol) that they show their frustration in idiotic ways.

The frustration is very real and i hope the rest of the world will not allow this madness to continue forever…

There may always be good reasons to be suspicious of Erdogan, but let’s not forget that our original motivation for buying influence in Turkey is that it can bottle up the a navy that lives in the Black Sea. Russia is not our dear friend.

If we were to stop sales to Turkey because we suspect that Erdogan may not be a western liberal, then let’s go through the whole list. We could start with Saudi Arabia. Somewhere on that list would be a country that is now holding journalists in prison because they attempted to reach a place that Israel claims not to control.

When Turkey was a “safe” friend of the US, it was a military oligarchy. Many Turks, especially in Istanbul, thrived under this system and miss it.

From the beginning of our post-WWII relationship with Turkey, it was all about complicating the USSR’s strategic dilemma. Up to the fall of the USSR, their Black Sea Fleet’s Mediterranean forces were generally allowed unfettered passage through the Bosporus-Marmara-Dardanelles bottleneck. Usually, when tensions started ratcheting up between the US and USSR, or when Soviet Med allies like Egypt needed visible support, the Soviet Navy would pre-deploy fairly large forces into the Med, lessening the likelihood of a Turkish shutdown of the Straits being meaningful.

These days, the successors of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet – the Russian and Ukrainian Navies, and the Georgian Coast Guard, are largely dysfunctional and have virtually no strategic value. The Russians will have to evacuate their main Black Sea base at Sebastopol in 2017.

From the beginning of our Turkish relationship, we based B-29, B-50, B-47 and other reconnaissance aircraft there, B-47 and (sometimes) B-52 squadrons with nuclear gravity bombs or missiles, and from April 1961 until they became obsolete, three squadrons of Jupiter IRBM’s. We even – briefly – turned over most of the control of the Jupiters to the Turks, with USAF personnel retaining only the launch codes for the up-to-1-megaton loads on the missiles.

Along with the collapse of the USSR, US ability and necessity to control Turkish affairs has lessened with the ascendancy of civilian politicians over military dominance.

It may have only been a matter of time before the Israeli-controlled aspects of our political machinery forced us to choose between Tel Aviv and Ankara. I’m not optimistic. However, Turkey’s economy is one of the least vulnerable in that part of the world, and they appear to be in a ripe position to take advantage of our foolish policies in the Eastern Mediterranean.

People tend to underestimate how thoroughly Israeli policies in the Eastern Mediterranean have been driven at one level or another by a perceived necessity to diminish the economies of adjacent and surrounding states by one mean or another. What good that has supposed to have done for Israel’s long-term prospects for success is beyond me.

From the beginning of 2010 through now, Israeli officials have sought to cripple one aspect or another of the Turkish economic prospects in the local area and beyond. There have been exceptions, but mostly in the realm of joint agreements or relationships that directly benefit Israeli firms or individuals, along with the Turkish ones.

Can we be sure though that the need to bottle up the Black Sea is really history?

— If it isn’t history, it should be. When the process of the oceans dying speeds up in the 2020’s, we’ll hopefully realize the importance of more, not less cooperation in matters dealing with the health of the seas, and realize all the planet’s military machines need to be reigned in beyond what most people now contemplate as feasible.

I agree that Turkey is a dubious ally and we should think twice about selling them most modern weapons. In fact, a much wider review is in order. Once you factor all slights suffered by USA and its most precious allies, I would make a short list of deserving counties:

a. USA (we should have the right to purchase most sophisticated arms, subject of further review, of course)
b. Israel (no further review necessary)
c. Canada (of late, they are really, really nice)
d. Australia (ditto)
e. Palau

Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia do not make the list because they were absent during the fateful Unesco vote. Solomon Island and Vanuatu are OK, but Papua may dominate them so there is a question mark there. Similarly, The Netherlands are OK, and so is Lithuania, but can we afford to support relatively isolated countries like that.

We should also stop defending the countries that do not share our values and bring the troops home. Military bases can be sold, reducing the national debt.

(excerpts)…Mr Werritty was a regular visitor to Sri Lanka and Israel and had received payments from the Good Governance Group, which offers advice on international security, and the company Tamares Real Estate, which belongs to Poju Zabludowicz, the chairman of Bicom, an Israeli lobbying group….
…one of Pargav’s backers was Tamares Real Estate. Tamares is evidently the largest landowner in Las Vegas including the Nevada Hotel and Casino, the Vegas Club, the Gold Spike and the Queen of Hearts Hotel and Casino in its portfolio. Its owner, Finnish billionaire Poju Zabludowicz is a major Conservative party donor, last year donating £131,805 to the party according to the Times.
And this is where the can of worms gets more interesting; Mr. Zabludowicz is also Chairman of BICOM (Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre). Interestingly, the Times describes BICOM as one of the common threads running through Mr. Werritty’s network of political friendships….
…“Organizations such as the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) have hundreds of thousands of pounds at their disposal, much of it coming directly from the United States, which sends a third of its whole, global foreign aid budget to Israel’s six million citizens (the real figure, including loan guarantees, tax breaks for charities and defence deals, could be as high as $10,000m annually..” …

This is one reason I removed UK from the list of countries privileged to get our best weapons: true ally would not fire defence minister for being under Israeli influence. But I may reconsider if they bomb Iran — one should be flexible. Same for other marginal candidates (The Netherlands, Lithuania, Marshal Islands etc.)

RE: “This is one reason I removed UK from the list of countries privileged to get our best weapons…” ~ piotr

MY REPLY: Since you’re “in the know” regarding Israel and the U.K., what do you know about this?

(excerpt)…British intelligence has been on the warpath with Mossad ever since the Israeli intelligence agency was implicated by MI-6 in the murder of Gareth Williams, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) employee who was seconded to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) and whose badly decomposed body was found stuffed into a sports bag in an MI-6 safe house in the Pimlico neighborhood of London on August 23, 2010. Williams was a victim of a professional Mossad hit team. A “Mediterranean looking” young man and woman, believed to be between 20 and 30 years of age, are still suspects in Williams’s death, now believed by British police to have been due to poisoning. “Mediterranean” is a politically-correct code phrase used by British police to describe the Israeli Mossad hit team. The FBI uses a similar code phrase, “Middle Eastern-looking,” to describe Israeli spies in the United States. The Mossad duo was last seen entering the MI-6 residence where Williams lived in July 2010…

Another major donor to Pargav, according to The Guardian, was Good Governance Group (G3), a private intelligence firm started by South African Andries Pienaar, formerly with the CIA-connected Kroll special investigations firm. A number of ex-MI6 officers work for G3.

the UK bloq guido fawke reported G3 was a spy operation but i couldn’t find any more info on that.

More interesting is the Oliver Letwin part of the story – according to the writer the documents he was binning in the park were being left for Israeli intel agents to pick up. Just what is going on in our government of late?! Can’t they get hold of info here as easily as they do in the US? Not enough placemen handing stuff over from lower down the totem pole? They have to get their pickings from the people at the top! Let’s get them heads arolling! Tumbrils ahoy!

Talk of “Mediterranean looking” team members and sports bags reminds me of the short, fat, balding tennis-tog-wearing team member with the huge duffel bag caught on tape during the hit in Dubai. I don’t recall whether his get up was as popular a costume in Tel Aviv the following Purim as that of team-member, “Gail.”

Grossman215Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has chosen a new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan: a long-time controversial neocon, a man who has been famous for parading as a foreign agent in the lobby circuit, the scandalous former diplomat Marc Grossman. The not-so-gradual resurrection of the old neocon cabal under the Obama administration, led by Hillary Clinton, should not come as a surprise. According to Washington insiders, Richardl Perle and Douglas Feith have been consulted more than a few times in their ‘unofficial’ capacity, but are not far down in the queue to receive ‘official’ acknowledgement. This shouldn’t come as a surprise; at least to those who’ve been following the steady momentum building at the Obama White House towards a soon-to-come Neocon Easter.

Hillary Clinton appointed Dennis Ross as Special Advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia; a man well-known as a hard-core neocon, Paul Wolfowitz’ protégé, cofounder of the AIPAC sponsored Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and one of the loudest advocates for the Israel lobby. A man who is known to consider himself more Israeli than American; a Jewish American who is known to have spent ‘a lot of time’ in Israel to find his real identity-nationality.

KaganWe had Frederick Kagan, a neocon of choice for Mr. Obama, who was hired to manage General Petraeus on Afghanistan. A man whose father was born into a Jewish family in Lithuania; a man cherished by his bosses at the American Enterprise Institute; a man who authored the book, While America Sleeps, arguing in favor of a large increase in military spending and warned of future threats, including the imaginary WMD program in Iraq. We are talking about the man who was one of the main signatories of Project for the New American Century manifesto – the Neocon Bible. The man who was one of the Bush-Cheney administration’s favorite masterminds when it came to perpetual wars. Read more ?

Grossman215Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has chosen a new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan: a long-time controversial neocon, a man who has been famous for parading as a foreign agent in the lobby circuit, the scandalous former diplomat Marc Grossman. The not-so-gradual resurrection of the old neocon cabal under the Obama administration, led by Hillary Clinton, should not come as a surprise. According to Washington insiders, Richardl Perle and Douglas Feith have been consulted more than a few times in their ‘unofficial’ capacity, but are not far down in the queue to receive ‘official’ acknowledgement. This shouldn’t come as a surprise; at least to those who’ve been following the steady momentum building at the Obama White House towards a soon-to-come Neocon Easter.

Hillary Clinton appointed Dennis Ross as Special Advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia; a man well-known as a hard-core neocon, Paul Wolfowitz’ protégé, cofounder of the AIPAC sponsored Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and one of the loudest advocates for the Israel lobby. A man who is known to consider himself more Israeli than American; a Jewish American who is known to have spent ‘a lot of time’ in Israel to find his real identity-nationality.

KaganWe had Frederick Kagan, a neocon of choice for Mr. Obama, who was hired to manage General Petraeus on Afghanistan. A man whose father was born into a Jewish family in Lithuania; a man cherished by his bosses at the American Enterprise Institute; a man who authored the book, While America Sleeps, arguing in favor of a large increase in military spending and warned of future threats, including the imaginary WMD program in Iraq. We are talking about the man who was one of the main signatories of Project for the New American Century manifesto – the Neocon Bible. The man who was one of the Bush-Cheney administration’s favorite masterminds when it came to perpetual wars. Read more ?
———————————————————————-

So much hanky panky with Turkey by Grossman, Feith, Perle, Wolfowitz
Edmonds claims that during her time at the FBI (September 20, 2001 to March 22, 2002) she discovered that intelligence material had been deliberately allowed to accumulate without translation; that inept translators were retained and promoted; and that evidence for traffic in nuclear materials was ignored. More shockingly, she charges that Grossman arranged for Turkish and Israeli Ph.D. students to acquire security clearances to Los Alamos and other nuclear facilities; and that nuclear secrets they acquired were transmitted to Pakistan and to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father of the Islamic bomb,” who in turn was selling nuclear technology to Libya and other nations.

She links Grossman to the former Pakistani military intelligence chief Mahmoud Ahmad, a patron of the Taliban, who reportedly arranged for a payment of $100,000 to 9/11 ringleader Atta via Pakistani terrorist Saeed Sheikh before the attacks. She suggests that he warned Pakistani and Turkish contacts against dealings with the Brewster Jennings Corp., the CIA front company that Valerie Plame was involved in as part of an effort to infiltrate a nuclear smuggling ring. All very heady stuff, published this month in The Times of London (and largely ignored by the U.S. media).link to informationclearinghouse.info

“From the mainstream media reporting similar to the above, ordinary Americans should at least gather this much:

Mr. Grossman had to be a Bush-Cheney administration favorite to be appointed as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the State Department’s third-ranking official, in 2001. In 2004, Grossman attained the Foreign Service’s highest rank when the President appointed him to the rank of Career Ambassador.

Grossman works for the sin city’s (Washington DC) lobby industry. Not only that, he actually represents foreign governments, foreign businesses and interests. The Cohen Group represents some of the country’s largest weapons manufacturers, companies that stand to benefit from weapons sales: Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Sikorsky…among others. Their list of controversial and or criminal entities includes companies such as DynCorp International. Through their partnership with DLA Piper, the Cohen group also serves foreign clients such as the Turkish government and business interest groups, Australia’s scandalous AWB, India and UAE.

And here is what many Americans won’t be getting from the US media:

– The investigative reports on Marc Grossman and his role in planting moles in US nuclear facilities:

An unnamed high-ranking State Department official helps a nuclear smuggling ring connected to Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and Pakistan’s ISI to plant “moles” in US military and academic institutions that handle nuclear technology, according to FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. The State Department official apparently arranges security clearance for some of the moles, enabling them to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities, including the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent. The high-ranking State Department official who is not named by Britain’s Sunday Times is said to be Marc Grossman…

– John M. Cole, a former FBI Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Manager, has publicly confirmed FBI’s decade long investigation the former State Department Official, Marc Grossman:

John M. Cole, a former FBI Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Manager, has publicly confirmed the FBI’s decade long investigation of the former State Department Official Marc Grossman. Cole worked for 18 years in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. According to Cole, as in over one hundred cases involving Israeli espionage activities directed against the US government, the Grossman case was covered up and buried despite mountains of evidence that was collected.

Here is the public response from John Cole after the publication of The American Conservative magazine’s cover story:

“I read the recent cover story by The American Conservative magazine. I applaud their courage in publishing this significant interview. I am fully aware of the FBI’s decade-long investigation of the High-level State Department Official named in this article, Marc Grossman, which ultimately was buried and covered up. It is long past time to investigate this case and bring about accountability…”

-Marc Grossman was the originator of the Plame Leak:

Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, prepares a memo about former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger to ascertain the truth or falsity of claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from that nation (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). The memo refers explicitly to Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as a CIA official and identifies her as Wilson’s wife, using the name “Valerie Wilson.” The second paragraph of the memo is marked with an “S,” denoting that Wilson is a covert operative for the agency.

-In late December 2005, Grossman joined Ihlas Holding, a large and alleged shady Turkish company which is also active in several Central Asian countries. Grossman is reported to receive $100,000 per month for his advisory position with Ihlas.

-In May 2010, DLA Piper, one of the world’s largest international lobby-law firms, hired Marc Grossman as their front man for their Turkish operations. The man in charge of one of DLA Piper major accounts-Turkey is none other than our good ole Dennis Hastert. That makes two former FBI criminal targets for one firm;-)

Now, with all these murky qualifications, you’d think the mainstream media would have a field day with Marc Grossman’s appointment by the Hillary-Obama administration; right? Wrong. So far, not a peep from the US media and that includes both the ‘R’ and the ‘D’ fronts. Same goes for the quasi alternatives. Not even a word about the ‘revolving door’ aspect of this scandalous appointment: A Foreign Agent, A Lobbyist, A man on the payroll of a shady foreign company for over $1 million a year…But then again, less than a month ago we witnessed another envoy, another appointment, with a major ‘CONFLICT OF INTEREST’ flag rising to its top that went completely censored in the US media. The scandal was widely reported by foreign media, such as the Independent, who actually broke the story, and even after that, we barely heard a peep:”

None of whom are Jewish to my knowledge. Once again, Phil, you’ve shown just how antisemitic your blog is by pointing out the religion of members of Congress and asserting that they are acting on something that has the support of many non-Jewish members because they are Jews. Textbook hatred, whether Peace Now pointed it out or not.

The letter,.as opposed to the legislation, was sent to Obama, by seven Jewish members of Congress who had no problem supporting Turkey as long as it ignored Israel’s crimes against its neighbors. While three other Congressional lickspittles in the Republican Party including the noxious Michael Grimm from NY co-sponsored the legislation, the letter was strictly a Jewish thing.

And they weren’t just any Jews. Howard Berman bragged to his constituents that he entered Congress to work for Israel. It’s on YouTube if you don’t believe me, and he’s worked like hell to prove it.
In fact, Berman, Berkley, Engel, Sherman and Shiff, are all members of the advisory board of The Israel Project, a leading propaganda arm of Israel’s Washington occupation forces.

Sherman is the twerp who wanted to prosecute Americans who sailed on the Gaza flotilla when it is this guy who needs to be prosecuted or at least forced to register as a foreign agent. That is what should happen to the whole lot of them

The good news is that since the congressional reapportionment in California was taken out of the hands of a firm run by Berman’s brother Michael and put in the hands of what is, for the moment, an independent commission, Berman and Sherman have been thrown into the same district and will running head to head in next year’s primary.

Hophmi “…No, I mean when you ascribe policies to Jewish members of Congress and suggest that they promote those policies because of their religion and suggest further that they are not patriotic Americans.

— Michelle Labgold: Congresswoman, what are your top priorities for this year?

Congresswoman Berkley: On the international scene, making sure that the roadmap laid out by the President** does not encumber Israel in any way, move towards secure borders free from terrorist attacks, dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure, having the Palestinians account for the millions of dollars that the United States and members of the European Union provided for them, have Israel’s right to exist be recognized by all of its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians so they can live within secure borders.

— Labgold: Congresswoman, how do you work within your caucus to build support for issues of concern to the Jewish community?

I have been a pro-Israel activist for most of my life, very active in Federation, AIPAC, ADL, American Jewish Committee and so forth, and without any fear of contradiction, I would say the United States Congress is very supportive of issues that affect the Jewish community, particularly our strong support of the State of Israel. I realize not every member of Congress has a Jewish constituency and a passion for the issues as I do, but along with the twenty-six other Jewish members of Congress, we do our best to educate other members who may not be as sensitive to these issues as we are about the importance of a strong relationship between the United States and Israel and trying to explain the difference between a victim of terrorist attacks and a perpetrator.

Shelley Berkley is the Co-chair of the Congressional Israel Allies Foundation with Eliot Engel, as well as Nita Lowey.

About the IIACF
“…The International Israel Allies Caucus Foundation (IIACF) exists to unabashedly strengthen international support for Israel in governments and parliaments around the world. This is accomplished through cooperation with members of official parliamentary caucuses in support of Israel and the development of coordinated activities with these caucuses. About the International Israel Alliance Caucus Foundation.

IACF is a sister caucus of the The Knesset Christian Allies Caucus.

“…Through the establishment of our sister organizations, the KCAC has created an international network of bi-partisan parliamentary caucuses at the echelon of government. These work in close communication with the KCAC and one and other to mobilize government support for Israel and coordinate pro-Israel activities.

While international caucus members are not all necessarily Christian, they are committed to the development of Judeo- Christian relations based on the religions’ mutual values and the mobilization of support for Israel…”

link to informationclearinghouse.info
“But first, some background on Grossman. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara and the London School of Economics, he was a career Foreign Service officer from 1976 when he began to serve at the US embassy in Pakistan. He continued in that post to 1983, when he became the Deputy Director of the Private Office of Lord Carrington, the Secretary General of NATO. From 1989 to 1992 he was Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Turkey, and from 1994 to 1997, US Ambassador to Turkey. As ambassador he strongly supported massive arms deals between the US and Ankara.”

link to informationclearinghouse.info
“Grossman is close to the American Turkish Council (ATC) founded in 1994 as a sister organization to the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). Its founders include neoconservatives involved in the Israel-Turkey relationship, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, as well as Henry Kissinger, Brent Snowcroft and former congressman Stephen Solarz. (Perle and Feith had earlier been registered lobbyists for Turkey through Feith’s company, International Advisors Inc. Perle was at one point making $600,000 per year from such activity). Edmonds says this is “an association in name and in charter only; the reality is that it and other affiliated associations are the US government, lobbyists, foreign agents, and Military Industrial Complex.” (M. Christine Vick of Grossman’s Cohen Group serves on the Board of Advisors.) Grossman is also close to the American Turkish Association (ATA), and regularly speaks at its events.

Both ATA and ATC have been targets of FBI investigations because of their suspected ties with drug smuggling, but Edmonds claims she heard wiretaps connecting ATC with other illegal activities, some related to 9/11. The CIA has investigated it in connection with the smuggling of nuclear secrets and material. Valerie Plame and the CIA front group Brewster Jennings were monitoring it when Bush administration officials leaked her identity in July 2003. Edmonds, Giraldi, and researchers Christopher Deliso and Luke Ryland accuse him of suspiciously enriching himself while in government service. Nevertheless he was awarded the Foreign Service’s highest rank when President Bush appointed him to the rank of Career Ambassador in 2004, and received Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award the following year.

A dual Israeli-American national, Grossman has promoted the neocon agenda of forcing “regime change” in the Middle East. “[T]he time has come now,” he declared on the eve of the Iraq invasion, “to make a stand against this kind of connection between weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. And we think Iraq is a place to make that stand first . . . the great threat today is the nexus between weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.” But he has not been as conspicuous a war advocate as Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Libby, Bolton, and some others. (Perle and Feith, one should note, were also deeply involved in lobbying activities on behalf of Turkey as well as Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Edelman was ambassador to Turkey 2003-05 where, chagrined by the Turkish failure to enthusiastically support the US occupation of Iraq, he deeply offended his hosts.) Grossman seems less an ideologue driven to make the world safer for Israel than a corrupt, amoral, self-aggrandizing opportunist. Anyway, here is an incomplete chronology of his alleged wrongdoing, along with other relevant details.”

I suspect that the allegation that Grossman holds dual Israel and US citizenship is not true and it is one, that is frequently and mistakenly made regarding American Jews who put Israel’s interests before those of the US. For that very reason it is unlikely that they would take Israeli citizenship since it would open themselves up to the charges of dual loyalty which would make US government service more problematic.

There are, for sure, a number of government officials who object to the Israelization of Washington and would use that to get some of these traitors exposed and fired.

Do you know if any of our Reps are dual citizens? And do you know anything about the history of dual citizenship in the US and when and why it started?

Really something that Grossman was brought into the Obama administration with all that has been written about his shady dealings and the outing of Plame.

He sure has done his part in building up Turkey militarily.

link to antiwar.com
Interestingly enough, at the same time Feith and Perle were greasing Turkish palms and Grossman was presiding over in Ankara, the CIA’s Brewster-Jennings network and Valerie Plame were focusing on nuclear proliferation in Turkey. This scrutiny led them to trace private citizens in America as well as lobby groups like the American-Turkish Council – which is precisely where Plame met future husband Joseph Wilson, while “on duty” at a 1997 reception held by then-Turkish ambassador to the U.S. Nuzhet Kandemir.

The FBI also got involved on the domestic front, as the Edmonds case affirms. And there was discussion between successive Turkish and Pakistani governments, during the 1980s and 1990, regarding the idea of making both nuclear-armed Islamic states. At least as far as we know, only the latter has so far succeeded.

After leaving Turkey in 1997, Grossman was promoted by President Clinton to become assistant secretary of state for European affairs (1997-2000), where he helped expedite NATO’s illegal war against Yugoslavia. Under George W. Bush, he would become undersecretary of state for political affairs. As the administration was pushing for war in early 2003, Grossman became a mouthpiece for neocon policy. In a March 3, 2003, interview for Dutch television, he made a statement that could have come out of some PNAC policy papers: “[T]he time has come now to make a stand against this kind of connection between weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. And we think Iraq is a place to make that stand first … the great threat today is the nexus between weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.”

And there was discussion between successive Turkish and Pakistani governments, during the 1980s and 1990, regarding the idea of making both nuclear-armed Islamic states. At least as far as we know, only the latter has so far succeeded.

Former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson confirmed that Turkey possesses approximately 90 “Made in America” B61 thermonuclear weapons at the Incirlik military base. The IAEA ignores NATO states with nuclear weapons supplied by the US.

Kathleen, I doubt if any dual citizens are members of Congress since, again, it would open them up to the charge of dual loyalties. I suspect that Israel would prefer that they NOT take out Israeli citizenship and not make aliyah since they can be more effective for Israel on the US scene where they can present themselves as Jewish Americans who are concerned for Israel and are acting in America’s interests.

It seems to be purely a political decision based on what is best for Israel. An example is David Makovsky who edited the Jerusalem Post for 10 years. One might think he would have become an Israeli citizen but he didn’t. Why? Because the ZIONTERN had other plans for him, directing AIPAC’s spawn, the Washington Inst for Near East Policy, where he is frequently called to testify before Congressional committees on legislation concerning Israel as an “objective” expert. I even doubt that Wolf Blitzer, who worked for the JPost for years, became one, for the same reasons.

Frankly, I think the dual citizenship issue is overblown. It’s the misplaced loyalty that presents the problems.

Jeffery..we do have some dual Israel-US citizens, in the pentagon yet.
I can’t remember the woman’s name—Col Lang could tell you about her..but she is a dual, a former Israeli military high up and now has a sensitive position in the pentagon or DOD that interfaces with Holmeland security. Like I said ask Lang, he knows all about her.

American, you are referring to Col. Lani Kass, a former Israeli military officer who has been serving in the post as the assistant to the head of the Air Force as an adviser on cyber warfare (!), an astonishing appointment which the main stream media, and most of the alternative, has carefully ignored.

The difference in Kass’s case is that she is an Israeli who needed American citizenship in order to serve Israel’s cause in Washington whereas the others we are speaking about are American Jews. I would call them Jewish Americans but I think the former description is the more accurate.

There have been numerous articles at Mondoweiss, where Zionist Jews speak conspiratorially about Jewish identity. We have had Zionists say that they (JEWS, in their perspective, but in reality they mean Zionist Jews) should ‘infiltrate’ centers of influence DOT DOT DOT.

Or simple Jews – the politics of which I cannot recall – saying antisemitism is a good way for ‘them’ to self-identify.

Or former Israeli politicians who admit that the antisemitism card is one they abuse.

There is a context to this discussion on antisemitism and it is ALL archived at Mondoweiss.

Phil and Adam have reported on the zeitgeist and it is only narrow-minded, intellectual crooks like you, hophmi, who want to pretend that none of this is happening for a reason. Because if there is no reason or context – THEN and only then can someone claim it’s ‘the Jews!’ Or some other stupid antisemitic trope.

In 2007, Turkey lost its Jewish (Donmeh) rule, and that’s why the Zionists and Israel are going after it. Which is typical. US congressmen are just following orders, without any understanding of history.

These are two articles that you need to save. The first you can’t even get on Lexis-Nexis (shocking that it’s been removed) or The Forward anymore. You can buy the first 1994 article from Highbeam Research for a fee. Thankfully, others are publishing it.

To think just a few years back Perle, Feith, Grossman, Wolfowitz all worked hard to sell weapons to Turkeylink to jinsa.org
Turkish Bellicosity is NATO’s Dilemma

Printer-friendly version

JINSA Report #:
1,121
October 6, 2011

Bellicose threats directed at Israel by the Turkish government delivered over the past two months are extremely disturbing and demand an American response. Never before in the history of the alliance has a NATO member used such strident and threatening language at a fellow democratic country. This is in addition to nine years of actions counter to the positions of its Western partners.

The succession of hostile declarations by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other Turkish officials has been accompanied by a downgrading of relations with Israel and a threat to deploy Turkish naval vessels to confront the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, a measure the UN recently declared legal. Intentionally ratcheting up tensions in the face of conciliatory Israeli responses is a strategy by which Erdogan believes he can position Turkey as the lead “confrontation state” opposing Israel, surpassing Iran’s image with the Arab street.

MRW, there are also a number of books about the Donmeh, Greek Jews, most residents of Salonika, who pretended to be Muslim while keeping the Jewish faith and, who it seems made up the larger part of the Young Turks who established the modern Turkish state. There have even been hints that Ataturk was also a secret Jew given his admission, according to the Halkin articlem that he observed a major Jewish prayer..

All this would, of course, explain why the outwardly Muslim Turks befriended Israel from the beginning and turned toward Europe and why the Israelis and their American supporters were so anxious to avert attention from the Armenian genocide. It was not because, as many think, it competed with the Jewish holocaust but because it was carried out and led by Turkish Donmeh who have been identified by name.

Now, that the Donmeh are no longer in control, Muslim Turkey has, understandably, turned East

Unconverted rabbinical Jews have always despised the Dönme as apostates. When Muslims were being expelled from Greece in the exchange of populations with Turkey that took place after World War One, at least some Dönme in Salonica wanted to reconvert to Judaism, so that they could escape expulsion. The rabbis of Salonica would not allow them to. So they ended up in Turkey, mainly in Istanbul.

Irony of history is that it turned out, if they had been allowed to stay in Salonica, they would have been slaughtered along with the non-Dönme Jews by the Nazis, who considered the Dönme to be as Jewish as anybody. Being expelled saved their lives.

Mondoweiss in Your Inbox

Get Mondoweiss delivered directly to your inbox every morning and stay up to date with our independent coverage of events in the Middle East!

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.